alt Hacker NewsSimple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. The entire Internet is not Netflix. Most Netflix users today don't even use their laptops or desktops for Netflix: they use it on their TVs, phones, video game consoles.
Firefox is a bad way to use Netflix anyways. It doesn't support high resolutions because it has limited Widevine support anyways. It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. So... It is a worse way to watch Netflix.
I'm sorry but this "we can't possibly take a risk like this" mentality is cancerous. It is comfortable to "play it safe" and all, but nobody takes any risks for anything anymore. It's not calculated when the calculation is "avoid risk at all costs".
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Yes, this is a no brainer. Whenever someone accesses NetFlix on a Firefox with no EME, just display a page which has a short description explaining why Firefox doesn't support EME ("EME is not included to protect your privacy as it allows websites to profile and identify you more easily") and provide a button to open Netflix either through a Netflix app or the pre-installed OS browser (Edge or Safari). Educate your users rather than treating everyone as dumb.
Or, reintroduce browser plugins (with permission based architecture).
> It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has.
Firefox supports Widevine Level 1 on Windows 11 devices with the requisite hardware and has for a year or so.
Not many providers other than Netflix support it still, but it does.
> Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product.
Lose the users lose the funding. Firefox can't live out of HN as its sole userbase. Have you checked how much it costs to build and maintain a modern browser?
Plenty of users who have no money for TV or consoles, watch it on their laptop on low quality. I am one of those who watches Netflix on Linux Firefox :)
This isn't just any risk. It's an existential one for Firefox. You are asking them to make something that would be unpopular to the majority of its userbase at a point when they are borderline extinct. You are asking Mozilla to jeopardise Firefox for the same of a feature that YOU dislike enough to want to burn Firefox to the ground to get rid of it.